Newman's Conversion Story in His Own Words (Brief)

About the middle of June (1839) I began to study and master the
history of the Monophysites (1) . . . It was during this course of
reading that for the first time a doubt came upon me of the
tenableness of Anglicanism . . . In the middle of the fifth century, I
found . . . Christendom of the 16th and the l9th centuries reflected.
I saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Monophysite. The church of
the Via Media (2) was in the position of the Oriental communion, Rome
was where she now is; and the Protestants were the Eutychians (3) . .
. It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or Monophysites were
heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans were heretics also;
difficult to find arguments against the Tridentine Fathers (4), which
did not tell against the Fathers of Chalcedon (5); difficult to
condemn the Popes of the 16th century, without condemning the Popes of
the 5th. The drama of religion, and the combat and truth and error,
were ever one and the same. The principles and proceedings of the
Church now, were those of the Church then; the principles and
proceedings of heretics then, were those of Protestants now . . . The
Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute,
overbearing, and relentless; and heretics were shifting, changeable,
reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never agreeing
together. (6)

In the summer of 1841 . . . my trouble returned on me. The ghost had

come a second time. In the Arian (7) History I found the very same
phenomenon, in a far bolder shape, which I had found in the
Monophysite . . . I saw clearly, that in the history of Arianism, the
pure Arians were the Protestants, the semi-Arians (8) were the
Anglicans, and that Rome now was what it was. The truth lay, not with
the Via Media, but in what was called "the extreme party." (9)

Whereas the Creeds tell us that the Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and
Apostolic, I could not prove that the Anglican communion was an
integral part of the one Church, on the ground of its being Apostolic
or Catholic, without reasoning in favour of what are commonly called
the Roman corruptions; and I could not defend our separation from Rome
without using arguments prejudicial to those great doctrines
concerning our Lord, which are the very foundation of the Christian
religion. (10)

Dec. 24, 1841 . . . There is indefinitely more in the Fathers against

our own state of alienation from Christendom than against the
Tridentine Decrees. (11)

For two years I was . . . in a state of serious doubt . . . I could

not go to Rome, while I thought what I did of the devotions she
sanctioned to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. (12)

The fact of the operation from first to last of that principle of

development is an argument in favour of Roman and Primitive
Christianity. (13)

Who can determine when it is, that the scales in the balance of
opinion begin to turn, and what was a greater probability in behalf of
a belief becomes a positive doubt against it? (14)

I had been deceived greatly once; how could I be sure that I was not
 deceived a second time? . . . I determined to write an Essay on
Doctrinal Development; and then, if, at the end of it, my convictions
in favour of the Roman Church were not weaker, to make up my mind to
seek admission into her fold . . . Before I got to the end, I resolved
to be received . . . (15)

From the time that I became a Catholic (16) . . . I . . . have had no

anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and
contentment. I never have had one doubt . . . It was like coming into
port after a rough sea; and my happiness on that score remains to this
day without interruption." (17)

FOOTNOTES

* 1. Monophysitism: A heresy of the 5th century holding that Christ had

a Divine Nature alone (the orthodox view is that He had Divine and
Human Natures).
* 2. Via Media: The view that Anglicanism is intermediate between
Catholicism and Protestantism, and is a "branch" of the universal
Catholic Church..
* 3. Eutychianism: An extreme form of Monophysitism which denied that
the manhood of Christ was consubstantial with ours.
* 4. Tridentine Fathers: Referring to the Bishops at the Council of
Trent (1545-63).
* 5. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 condemned the Monophysites.
* 6. Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image,
1956 (originally 1864), pp.217-218.
* 7. Arianism: A heresy of the 4th century which held that Jesus was
created and not eternally God the Son.
* 8. Semi-Arianism: A group between orthodoxy and Arianism, but closer
to orthodoxy.
* 9. Newman, ibid., pp.238-9.
* 10. Ibid., p.248.
* 11. Ibid., p.255.
* 12. Ibid., pp.275-6.
* 13. Ibid., pp.286-7.
* 14. Ibid., p.300.
* 15. Ibid., pp.309-310,313.
* 16. Newman had converted 19 years before this work was written (in
1864).
* 17. Newman, ibid., p.317.

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Cardinal Newman / Main Index / Church Index

Compiled by Dave Armstrong in 1991.